The bor­der between Myan­mar and China is con­sid­ered a front line of human traf­fick­ing. A steady stream of peo­ple cross the bor­der in either direc­tion. Some­times its hard to dis­tin­guish between those who were coerced into cross­ing, those cross­ing against their will, and those who made their own choice to cross.

From this Arti­cle in the Pen­nin­sula On-Line, we read more about human traf­fick­ing in the Chi­nese boarder town of Ruili.

On any given after­noon, a steady stream of peo­ple scale the six-foot-high fence, unper­turbed by the Chi­nese bor­der guards posted just a hun­dred yards away. Amid the men from Myan­mar look­ing for day labour, or women com­ing to sell their veg­eta­bles in the wealth­ier Chi­nese mar­kets, is traf­fic far less benign: Myan­mar women being brought over for mar­riages with Chi­nese men — some forced, some vol­un­tar­ily arranged through “matchmakers.”

Babies being brought into China to be sold. And Chi­nese women from poorer inland areas being moved in the oppo­site direc­tion, often end­ing up in South­east Asia’s sex indus­try. In the shad­owy world of human traf­fick­ing, say gov­ern­ment offi­cials and advis­ers with for­eign aid agen­cies, China has become a source coun­try, a des­ti­na­tion coun­try and a tran­sit coun­try all at once.

“Some of the Yun­nan women and girls think they’ll get a bet­ter job in Thai­land,” said Kath­leen Speake, chief tech­ni­cal adviser for the United Nations’ Inter­na­tional Labor Office in Bei­jing. Peo­ple from Myan­mar “are com­ing into China. We’re look­ing at being traf­ficked for adop­tion, and women being traf­ficked for marriage.”

No firm num­bers are avail­able on the extent of traf­fick­ing. Kirsten di Mar­tino, a project offi­cer in Bei­jing for UNICEF, said that from 2000 to 2007, China’s pub­lic secu­rity bureau inves­ti­gated 44,000 cases of traf­fick­ing, res­cu­ing about 130,000 women and children.

But, she added, “this is just the tip of the ice­berg.” China, she said, “is very big, and has a lot of bor­der — and has a whole lot of prob­lems.” Here in Ruili, two crim­i­nal gangs were cracked and 14 women res­cued in the first half of the year, said Meng Yil­ian, who works for the newly formed group China-Myanmar Coop­er­a­tion Against Human Traf­fick­ing. Myan­mar is also known as Burma.

“In the vil­lages bor­der­ing Myan­mar, there are some peo­ple work­ing as match­mak­ers,” she said. “And some of them are human traf­fick­ers. It’s hard to tell who are the match­mak­ers and who are the traf­fick­ers.” Match­mak­ing, which falls into a legally murky ter­rain, is rooted in Chi­nese tra­di­tion, which allows a man to make a gift to a woman’s fam­ily in exchange for marriage.

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